Bernaisesource

Technorati Tags: Garry Betty; EarthLink;

I just returned from a two week vacation in Peru.  (And no, I won't force a slide show on you.)  But hiking along the Inca trail to Machu Picchu gave me some time to think about blogging and travelling.

For the past six months or so, I have been putting my thoughts about PR and new media to keyboard.  In the process, I have remained focused on meeting self imposed deadlines, commented far less than I should on other blogs, and yes, looked at my Technorati ranking from time to time.

But it occurred to me that blogging and travelling are not so far apart.  Like racking up links to your blog, it is nice collecting stamps from foreign countries in your passport.  But those stamps and those links are not just about bragging rights.  Each posting is a opportunity to share thoughts and get feedback.  Each glance and gesture with a "local" in a distant land forms a bond and establishes some understanding where none existed before.  Interactions are a chance to appreciate commonalities and note differences.  These exchanges are very basic -- no one-upmanships, no hidden agendas.  That too is my objective in blogging. 

Asking more questions than providing answers (for now), I go back to my original purpose for blogging -- mapping the brave new world of new media.  Hopefully my journey will be far less impactful than that of the Spanish conquistadores under Francisco Pisarro. Close to 500 years ago, he and his men arrived in what is today Peru and helped wipe out the Inca civilization in their expansion westward in search of riches and territory.  What their weaponary didn't accomplish, small pox did.  The Inca empire could not endure the Old World's most lethal export.

While away, I tried to avoid the Internet's charms.  I can't say that I was completely immune (Internet cafes abound) but it was healthy to keep my online interactions to a minimum.  Seeing men, women and children toil in fields hunched over with simple tools gave me some perspective as I seek to master new media.  Our hardships are not comparable.  At the very least, my respect for the world's cultural diversity only continues to grow.

And so I get back in the saddle, resume my blogging and seek connections with you.

Let me get back to you.

I will be taking a two week break from blogging as I pursue some greatly welcomed rest and relaxation.  I am sure the blogosphere will be none the worse with my absence.  I will resume on November 20th.

But in my upcoming peregrination, I will be thinking about 2007.  I am sure like me, many of you are doing budget planning for next year.  The challenge, as always, is doing more with less than we think we need.  

But this year, unlike in years before, many of us are ramping up to do much more with new media.   When I started at EarthLink in 2000, I was thinking more about VNRs than video clips on YouTube, satellite media tours not virtual press conferences in Second Life, and press releases not blogging.  My how things have changed!  

The rise of new media stretches our budget planning acumen.  It is not enough to understand all the new tools and technologies at our disposable.  It is not even a matter of determining how much to allocate or convincing skeptical bosses you need the money for an unproven new media campaign with no real basis for measuring success.  For me, the real challenge is understanding how the pieces fit together.  Where do we focus our attention?  How does blogging integrate with podcasts? Do we roll out a product first with bloggers or traditional media?  Do I do a one-off in Second Life and tick it off my to do list?

In the early stages of the new media revolution, there seems to be a tendency to approach blogs, social media and podcasts as if we were at a giant buffet table.  I will have a little of this, some more of that, and soon enough you have a heaping mound of food mixed together.

Not that a buffet is a bad thing, but I usually wind up eating more than I should on a meal that is rarely memorable.

And memorable is the name of the game.  For once you begin the conversation, you need to stay at it.  The power of new media is the on-going relationship, the customer engagement that stands in contrast to one way ads and press releases.  Consumers are already cynical about the communications process.  Abandoning the effort mid stream may be worse than doing nothing at all.  

All of which makes our job exciting, if not challenging.  I wouldn’t want it any other way.

For now, let me get back to you.

Traditionally, the PR and legal departments have stood on opposite sides of the communications spectrum.  While both serve to protect a company’s or client’s reputation, their priorities are very different.  PR folks spin, use superlatives (first, best, biggest, fastest, etc.) and seek maximum exposure.  Lawyers prefer legal jargon, urge restraint (one of the first, best, biggest, fastest, etc.) and encourage minimal disclosure. (“No Comment.”)

New media only heightens this tension.  For PR professionals, blogging presents exciting opportunities to engage different audiences in new, more personal ways.  It allows us to circumvent the reporter’s filter and converse directly with the public.

Now no one ever said that print and broadcast journalism were predictable, but the blogosphere compounds that unpredictability with its legions of bloggers beholden to nobody.  It fosters a certain lawlessness and encourages its free-wheeling denizens to shoot from the hip. 

It is no wonder that a medium which holds great promise for PR professionals is causing fits for legal departments.  In the blogging world, it is harder to contain what is being said and control who is saying it.  Once more, the musings of employees are permanent business records, which are admissible as evidence in litigation. 

I suspect many lawyers would love to cut off all employee contact with bloggers or at least funnel all their comments through a time consuming review process.  But this can’t and won’t happen.  We can circle the wagons, clamp down, restrict and deny, but bloggers will continue unabated.  The blogosphere is too big, too dynamic to be ignored.

So in the world of transparency and decentralization, can PR and legal departments get along without driving each other crazy?  Where is the common ground that will allow PR and legal departments to at once raise visibility and limit exposure? 

For some perspective, I reached out to Doug Isenberg.  No stranger to media, the law and Internet, Doug started GigaLaw.com in 2000.  He was blogging before it was called blogging.

Doug recognizes that it’s ridiculous to pretend that negative blogs don’t exist.  The surest way to limit liability is to screen postings before they are published, but this process also limits a blog’s effectiveness.  A watered down blog “says nothing, speaks to nobody because it appeals to nobody.”  While he would advise clients to err on the side of caution, reality dictates some risk taking to achieve some degree of reward. 

The questions raised by his clients are instructive for PR professionals who must grapple with the negative rantings of unhappy customers, disgruntled employees and disappointed investors.  In the past, there was no such public forum with a wide distribution for these individuals. Today there is.  Offensive comments are more difficult to ignore.  Once more it is a hell of a lot easier to post those comments anonymously.

Doug regularly advises clients who want to respond and clamp down on negative postings.  He asks them, and we should ask ourselves, whether they are really prepared for the consequences if they engage.  Will responding to a blogger only embolden further comments and keep the conversation going?  Will questionable cease and desist letters get posted and fuel the flames?   Is better to leave well enough alone? 

In many cases, Doug would say yes and I am inclined to agree.  Where he draws the line is the posting of illegally obtained and proprietary information and in cases of suspected libel where an author knowingly makes false comments intended to cause harm or damage.  Libel is hard to prove and therefore charges of libel can’t be made lightly.

With the proliferation of blogs, we all know it is impossible to respond to every negative posting by every blogger regardless of influence.  So it is important to prioritize based on size, readership and influence. 

In many respects, blogging is not creating new code of law.  It is only allowing long standing issues to express themselves in a new forum.  The old rules of disclosure and libel still apply.  They are merely magnified in the blogosphere and require PR and legal strategies to be in close alignment.  Failure to do so may ironically turn a legal response into a PR headache.

Let me get back to you.

Technorati Tags: Doug Isenberg; GigaLaw; PR; Corporate Blogging;